A Minstrel In France by Harry Lauder

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But scouting airplanes, such as those were, do not go in for bomb
dropping. There are three sorts of airplanes. First come the scouting
planes--fairly fast, good climbers, able to stay in the air a long
time. Their business is just to spy out the lay of the land over the
enemy's trenches--not to fight or drop bombs. Then come the swift,
powerful bombing planes, which make raids, flying long distances to
do so. The Huns use such planes to bomb unprotected towns and kill
women and babies; ours go in for bombing ammunition dumps and trains
and railway stations and other places of military importance,
although, by now, they may be indulging in reprisals for some of
Fritz's murderous raids, as so many folk at hame in Britain have
prayed they would.

Both scouting and bombing planes are protected by the fastest flyers
of all--the battle planes, as they are called. These fight other
planes in the air, and it is the men who steer them and fight their
guns who perform the heroic exploits that you may read of every day.
But much of the great work in the air is done by the scouting planes,
which take desperate chances, and find it hard to fight back when
they are attacked. And it was scouts who were above us now--and,
doubtless, sending word back by wireless of a new and mysterious
concentration of British forces along the Scarpe, which it might be a
good thing for the Hun artillery to strafe a bit!

So, before very long, a rude interruption came to my songs, in the
way of shells dropped unpleasantly close. The men so far above us had
given their guns the range, and so, although the gunners could not
see us, they could make their presence felt.

I have never been booed or hissed by an audience, since I have been
on the stage. I understand that it is a terrible and a disconcerting
experience, and one calculated to play havoc with the stoutest of
nerves. It is an experience I am by no means anxious to have, I can
tell you! But I doubt if it could seem worse to me than the
interruption of a shell. The Germans, that day, showed no ear for
music, and no appreciation of art--my art, at least!

And so it seemed well to me to cut my programme, to a certain extent,
at least, and bid farewell to my audience, dressed and undressed. It
was a performance at which it did not seem to me a good idea to take
any curtain calls. I did not miss them, nor feel slighted because
they were absent. I was too glad to get away with a whole skin!

The shelling became very furious now. Plainly the Germans meant to
take no chances. They couldn't guess what the gathering their
airplanes had observed might portend, but, if they could, they meant
to defeat its object, whatever that might be. Well, they did not
succeed, but they probably had the satisfaction of thinking that they
had, and I, for one, do not begrudge them that. They forced the
Reverend Harry Lauder, M.P., Tour to make a pretty wide detour, away
from the river, to get back to the main road. But they fired a power
of shells to do so!

When we finally reached the road I heard a mad sputtering behind. I
looked around in alarm, because it sounded, for all the world, like
one of those infernal whizz bangs, chasing me. But it was not. The
noise came from a motor cycle, and its rider dashed up to me and
dropped one foot to the ground.

"Here's a letter for you, Harry," he said.

It was a package that he handed me. I was surprised--I was not
expecting to have a post delivered to me on the battlefield of Arras!
It turned out that the package contained a couple of ugly-looking
bits of shell, and a letter from my friends the Highlanders on the
other side of the railway embankment. They wrote to thank me for
singing for them, and said they hoped I was none the worse for the
bombardment I had undergone.

"These bits of metal are from the shell that was closest to you when
it burst," their spokesman wrote. "They nearly got you, and we
thought you'd like to have them to keep for souvenirs."

It seemed to me that that was a singularly calm and phlegmatic
letter! My nerves were a good deal overwrought, as I can see now.

Now we made our way slowly back to division headquarters, and there I
found that preparations had been made for very much the most
ambitious and pretentious concert that I had yet had a chance to give
in France. There was a very large audience, and a stage or platform
had been set up, with plenty of room on it for Johnson and his piano.
It had been built in a great field, and all around me, when I mounted
it, I could see kilted soldiers--almost as far as my eye could reach.
There were many thousands of them there--indeed, all of the Highland
Brigade that was not actually on duty at the moment was present, and
a good many other men beside, for good measure.

Here was a sight to make a Scots heart leap with pride! Here, before
me, was the flower of Scottish manhood. These regiments had been
through a series of battles, not so long since, that had sadly
thinned their ranks. Many a Scottish grave had been filled that
spring; many a Scottish heart at hame had been broken by sad news
from this spot. But there they were now, before me--their ranks
filled up again, splendid as they stretched out, eager to welcome me
and cheer me. There were tears in my eyes as I looked around at them.

Massed before me were all the best men Scotland had had to offer! All
these men had breathed deep of the hellish air of war. All had
marched shoulder to shoulder and skirt to skirt with death. All were
of my country and my people. My heart was big within me with pride of
them, and that I was of their race, as I stood up to sing for them.

Johnson was waiting for me to be ready. Little "Tinkle Tom," as we
called the wee piano, was not very large, but there were times when
he had to be left behind. I think he was glad to have us back again,
and to be doing his part, instead of leaving me to sing alone,
without his stout help.

Many distinguished officers were in that great assemblage. They all
turned out to hear me, as well as the men, and among them I saw many
familiar faces and old friends from hame. But there were many faces,
too, alas, that I did not see. And when I inquired for them later I
learned that many of them I had seen for the last time. Oh, the sad
news I learned, day after day, oot there in France! Friend after
friend of whom I made inquiry was known, to be sure. They could tell
me where, and when, and how, they had been killed.

Up above us, as I began to sing, our airplanes were circling. No
Boche planes were in sight now, I had been told, but there were many
of ours. And sometimes one came swooping down, its occupants curious,
no doubt, as to what might be going on, and the hum of its huge
propeller would make me falter a bit in my song. And once or twice
one flew so low and so close that I was almost afraid it would strike
me, and I would dodge in what I think was mock alarm, much to the
amusement of the soldiers.

I had given them two songs when a big man arose, far back in the
crowd. He was a long way from me, but his great voice carried to me
easily, so that I could hear every word he said.

"Harry," he shouted, "sing us 'The Wee Hoose Amang the Heather' and
we'll a' join in the chorus!"

For a moment I could only stare out at them. Between that sea of
faces, upraised to mine, and my eyes, there came another face--the
smiling, bonnie face of my boy John, that I should never see again
with mortal eyes. That had been one of his favorite songs for many
years. I hesitated. It was as if a gentle hand had plucked at my very
heart strings, and played upon them. Memory--memories of my boy,
swept over me in a flood. I felt a choking in my throat, and the
tears welled into my eyes.

But then I began to sing, making a signal to Johnson to let me sing
alone. And when I came to the chorus, true to the big Highlander's
promise, they all did join in the chorus! And what a chorus that was!
Thousands of men were singing.

"There's a wee hoose amang the heather,
There's a wee hoose o'er the sea.
There's a lassie in that wee hoose
Waiting patiently for me.
She's the picture of perfection--
I would na tell a lee
If ye saw her ye would love her
Just the same as me!"

My voice was very shaky when I came to the end of that chorus, but
the great wave of sound from the kilted laddies rolled out, true and
full, unshaken, unbroken. They carried the air as steadily as a ship
is carried upon a rolling sea.

I could sing no more for them, and then, as I made my way, unsteadily
enough, from the platform, music struck up that was the sweetest I
could have heard. Some pipers had come together, from twa or three
regiments, unknown to me, and now, very softly, their pipes began to
skirl. They played the tune that I love best, "The Drunken Piper." I
could scarcely see to pick my way, for the tears that blinded me, but
in my ears, as I passed away from them, there came, gently wailing on
the pipes, the plaintive plea--

"Will ye no come back again?"

CHAPTER XXIII

Now it was time to take to the motor cars again, and I was glad of
the thought that we would have a bracing ride. I needed something of
the sort, I thought. My emotions had been deeply stirred, in many
ways, that day. I felt tired and quite exhausted. This was by all
odds the most strenuous day the Reverend Harry Lauder, M.P., Tour had
put in yet in France. So I welcomed the idea of sitting back
comfortably in the car and feeling the cool wind against my cheeks.

First, however, the entertainers were to be entertained. They took
us, the officers of the divisional staff, to a hut, where we were
offered our choice of tea or a wee hauf yin. There was good Scots
whisky there, but it was the tea I wanted. It was very hot in the
sun, and I had done a deal of clambering about. So I was glad, after
all, to stay in the shade a while and rest my limbs.

Getting out through Arras turned out to be a ticklish business. The
Germans were verra wasteful o' their shells that day, considering how
much siller they cost! They were pounding away, and more shells, by a
good many, were falling in Arras than had been the case when we
arrived at noon. So I got a chance to see how the ruin that had been
wrought had been accomplished.

Arras is a wonderful sight, noble and impressive even in its
destruction. But it was a sight that depressed me. It had angered me,
at first, but now I began to think, at each ruined house that I saw:
"Suppose this were at hame in Scotland!" And when such thoughts came
to me I thanked God for the brave lads I had seen that day who stood,
out here, holding the line, and so formed a bulwark between Scotland
and such black ruin as this.

We were to start for Tramecourt now, but on the way we were to make a
couple of stops. Our way was to take us through St. Pol and Hesdin,
and, going so, we came to the town of Le Quesnoy. Here some of the
11th Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders were stationed. My heart
leaped at the sight of them. That had been my boy's regiment,
although he had belonged to a different battalion, and it was with
the best will in the world that I called a halt and gave them a
concert.

I gave two more concerts, both brief ones, on the rest of the
journey, and so it was quite dark when we approached the chateau at
Tramecourt. As we came up I became aware of a great stir and movement
that was quite out of the ordinary routine there. In the grounds I
could see tiny lights moving about, like fireflies--lights that came,
I thought, from electric torches.

"Something extraordinary must be going on here," I remarked to Captain
Godfrey. "I wonder if General Haig has arrived, by any chance?"

"We'll soon know what it's all about," he said, philosophically. But
I expect he knew already.

Before the chateau there was a brilliant spot of light, standing out
vividly against the surrounding darkness. I could not account for
that brilliantly lighted spot then. But we came into it as the car
stopped; it was a sort of oasis of light in an inky desert of
surrounding gloom. And as we came full into it and I stood up to
descend from the car, stretching my tired, stiff legs, the silence
and the darkness were split by three tremendous cheers.

It wasn't General Haig who was arriving! It was Harry Lauder!

"What's the matter here?" I called, as loudly as I could.

"Been waitin' for ye a couple of 'ours, 'Arry," called a loud cockney
voice in answer. "Go it now! Get it off your chest!" Then came
explanations. It seemed that a lot of soldiers, about four hundred
strong, who were working on a big road job about ten miles from
Tramecourt, had heard of my being there, and had decided to come over
in a body and beg for a concert. They got to the chateau early, and
were told it might be eleven o'clock before I got back. But they didn't
care--they said they'd wait all night, if they had to, to get a chance
to hear me. And they made some use of the time they had to wait.

They took three big acetylene headlights from motor cars, and
connected them up. There was a little porch at the entrance of the
chateau, with a short flight of steps leading up to it, and then we
decided that that would make an excellent makeshift theater. Since it
would be dark they decided they must have lights, so that they could
see me--just as in a regular theater at hame! That was where the
headlights they borrowed from motor cars came in. They put one on
each side of the porch and one off in front, so that all the light
was centered right on the porch itself, and it was bathed in as
strong a glare as ever I sang in on the stage. It was almost
blinding, indeed, as I found when I turned to face them and to sing
for them. Needless to say, late though it was and tired as I was, I
never thought of refusing to give them the concert they wanted!

I should have liked to eat my dinner first, but I couldn't think of
suggesting it. These boys had done a long, hard day's work. Then they
had marched ten miles, and, on top of all that, had waited two hours
for me and fixed up a stage and a lighting system. They were quite as
tired as I, I decided--and they had done a lot more. And so I told
the faithful Johnson to bring wee Tinkle Tom along, and get him up to
the little stage, and I faced my audience in the midst of a storm of
the ghostliest applause I ever hope to hear!

I could hear them, do you ken, but I could no see a face before me!
In the theater, bright though the footlights are, and greatly as they
dim what lies beyond them, you can still see the white faces of your
audience. At least, you do see something--your eyes help you to know
the audience is there, and, gradually, you can see perfectly, and
pick out a face, maybe, and sing to some one person in the audience,
that you may be sure of your effects.

It was utter, Stygian darkness that lay beyond the pool of blinding
light in which I stood. Gradually I did make out a little of what lay
beyond, very close to me. I could see dim outlines of human bodies
moving around. And now I was sure there were fireflies about. But
then they stayed so still that I realized, suddenly, with a smile,
just what they were--the glowing ends of cigarettes, of course!

There were many tall poplar trees around the chateau. I knew where to
look for them, but that night I could scarcely see them. I tried to
find them, for it was a strange, weird sensation to be there as I
was, and I wanted all the help fixed objects could give me. I managed
to pick out their feathery lines in the black distance--the darkness
made them seem more remote than they were, really. Their branches,
when I found them, waved like spirit arms, and I could hear the wind
whispering and sighing among the topmost branches.

Now and then what we call in Scotland a "batty bird" skimmed past my
face, attracted, I suppose, by the bright light. I suppose that bats
that have not been disturbed before for generations have been aroused
by the blast of war through all that region and have come out of dark
cavernous hiding-places, as those that night must have done, to see
what it is all about, the tumult and the shouting!

They were verra disconcertin', those bats! They bothered me almost as
much as the whizz bangs had done, earlier in the day! They swished
suddenly out of the darkness against my face, and I would start back,
and hear a ripple of laughter run through that unseen audience of
mine. Aye, it was verra funny for them, but I did not like that part
of it a bit! No man likes to have a bat touch his skin. And I had to
duck quickly to evade those winged cousins of the mouse--and then
hear a soft guffaw arising as I did it.

I have appeared, sometimes, in theaters in which it was pretty
difficult to find the audience. And such audiences have been nearly
impossible to trace, later, in the box-office reports. But that is
the first time in my life, and, up to now, the last, that I ever sang
to a totally invisible audience! I did not know then how many men
there might have been forty, or four hundred, or four thousand. And,
save for the titters that greeted my encounters with the bats, they
were amazingly quiet as they waited for me to sing.

It was just about ten minutes before eleven when I began to sing, and
the concert wasn't over until after midnight. I was distinctly
nervous as I began the verse of my first song. It was a great relief
when there was a round of applause; that helped to place my audience
and give me its measure, at once.

But I was almost as disconcerted a bit later as I had been by the
first incursion of the bats. I came to the chorus, and suddenly, out
of the darkness, there came a perfect gale of sound. It was the men
taking up the chorus, thundering it out. They took the song clean
away from me--I could only gasp and listen. The roar from that unseen
chorus almost took my feet from under me, so amazing was it, and so
unexpected, somehow, used as I was to having soldiers join in a
chorus with me, and disappointed as I should have been had they ever
failed to do so.

But after that first song, when I knew what to expect, I soon grew
used to the strange surroundings. The weirdness and the mystery wore
off, and I began to enjoy myself tremendously. The conditions were
simply ideal; indeed, they were perfect, for the sentimental songs
that soldiers always like best. Imagine how "Roamin' in the Gloamin'"
went that nicht!

I had meant to sing three or four songs. But instead I sang nearly
every song I knew. It was one of the longest programmes I gave during
the whole tour, and I enjoyed the concert, myself, better than any I
had yet given.

My audience was growing all the time, although I did not know that.
The singing brought up crowds from the French village, who gathered
in the outskirts of the throng to listen--and, I make no doubt, to
pass amazed comments on these queer English!

At last I was too tired to go on. And so I bade the lads good-nicht,
and they gave me a great cheer, and faded away into the blackness.
And I went inside, rubbing my eyes, and wondering if it was no all
a dream!

"It wasn't Sir Douglas Haig who arrived, was it, Harry?" Godfrey
said, slyly.

CHAPTER XXIV

The next morning I was tired, as you may believe. I ached in every
limb when I went to my room that night, but a hot bath and a good
sleep did wonders for me. No bombardment could have kept me awake
that nicht! I would no ha' cared had the Hun begun shelling
Tramecourt itself, so long as he did not shell me clear out of my
bed.

Still, in the morning, though I had not had so much sleep as I would
have liked, I was ready to go when we got the word. We made about as
early a start as usual--breakfast soon after daylight, and then out
the motor cars and to wee Tinkle Tom. Our destination that day, our
first, at least, was Albert--a town as badly smashed and battered as
Arras or Ypres. These towns were long thinly held by the British--
that is, they were just within our lines, and the Hun could rake them
with his fire at his own evil will.

It did him no good to batter them to pieces as he did. He wasted
shells upon them that must have been precious to him. His treatment
of them was but a part of his wicked, wanton spirit of
destructiveness. He could not see a place standing that he did not
want to destroy, I think. It was not war he made, as the world had
known war; it was a savage raid against every sign and evidence of
civilization, and comfort and happiness. But always, as I think I
have said before, one thing eluded him. It was the soul of that which
he destroyed. That was beyond his reach, and sore it must have
grieved him to come to know it--for come to know it he has, in
France, and in Belgium, too.

We passed through a wee town called Doullens on our way from
Tramecourt to Albert. And there, that morn, I saw an old French nun;
an aged woman, a woman old beyond all belief or reckoning. I think
she is still there, where I saw her that day. Indeed, it has seemed
to me, often, as I have thought upon her, that she will always be
there, gliding silently through the deserted streets of that wee
toon, on through all the ages that are to come, and always a cowled,
veiled figure of reproach and hatred for the German race.

There is some life in that wee place now. There are no more Germans,
and no more shells come there. The battle line has been carried on.
to the East by the British; here they have redeemed a bit of France
from the German yoke. And so we could stop there, in the heat of the
morning, for a bit of refreshment at a cafe that was once, I suppose,
quite a place in that sma' toon. It does but little business now;
passing soldiers bring it some trade, but nothing like what it used
to have. For this is not a town much frequented by troops--or was
not, just at that time.

There was some trouble, too, with one of the cars, so we went for a
short walk through the town. It was then that we met that old French
nun. Her face and her hands were withered, and deeply graven with the
lines of the years that had bowed her head. Her back was bent, and
she walked slowly and with difficulty. But in her eyes was a soft,
young light that I have often seen in the eyes of priests and nuns,
and that their comforting religion gives them. But as we talked I
spoke of the Germans.

Gone from her eyes was all their softness. They flashed a bitter and
contemptuous hatred.

"The Germans!" she said. She spat upon the ground, scornfully, and
with a gesture of infinite loathing. And every time she uttered that
hated word she spat again. It was a ceremony she used; she felt, I
know, that her mouth was defiled by that word, and she wished to
cleanse it. It was no affectation, as, with some folk, you might have
thought it. It was not a studied act. She did it, I do believe,
unconsciously. And it was a gesture marvelously expressive. It spoke
more eloquently of her feelings than many words could have done.

She had seen the Germans! Aye! She had seen them come, in 1914, in
the first days of the war, rolling past in great, gray waves, for
days and days, as if the flood would never cease to roll. She had
seen them passing, with their guns, in those first proud days of the
war, when they had reckoned themselves invincible, and been so sure
of victory. She knew what cruelties, what indignities, they had put
upon the helpless people the war had swept into their clutch. She
knew the defilements of which they had been guilty.

Nor was that the first time she had seen Germans. They had come
before she was so old, though even then she had not been a young
girl--in the war of 1870, when Europe left brave France to her fate,
because the German spirit and the German plan were not appreciated or
understood. Thank God the world had learned its lesson by 1914, when
the Hun challenged it again, so that the challenge was met and taken
up, and France was not left alone to bear the brunt of German greed
and German hate.

She hated the Germans, that old French nun. She was religious; she
knew the teachings of her church. She knew that God says we must love
our enemies. But He could not expect us to love His enemies.

Albert, when we came to it, we found a ruin indeed. The German guns
had beaten upon it until it was like a rubbish heap in the backyard
of hell. Their malice had wrought a ruin here almost worse than that
at Arras. Only one building had survived although it was crumbling to
ruin. That was a church, and, as we approached it, we could see, from
the great way off, a great gilded figure of the Holy Virgin, holding
in her arms the infant Christ.

The figure leaned at such an angle, high up against the tottering
wall of the church, that it seemed that it must fall at the next
moment, even as we stared at it. But--it does not fall. Every breath
of wind that comes sets it to swaying, gently. When the wind rises to
a storm it must rock perilously indeed. But still it stays there,
hanging like an inspiration straight from Heaven to all who see it.
The peasants who gaze upon it each day in reverent awe whisper to
you, if you ask them, that when it falls at last the war will be
over, and France will be victorious.

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